The Act of Thawing
by A Moonless Sky
Summary: "I don't remember the last time I felt any semblance of warmth. Do you know what that's like? To constantly be cold? My sister hugs me and I can't feel it, not really. I feel her arms around me, but that's it. I barely even remember what a real hug feels like." Large arms wrapped around her frame, and tears began to slide down her face. Warmth. All Might/OC


_**Now is the winter of our discontent.**_

 _ **William Shakespeare**_

* * *

She was standing too close to the fireplace. She knew she was, she wasn't an idiot. The flames licked at her bare legs, most people would have moved farther away, kept their distance, maybe would have broken a sweat from the heat. The white-haired woman didn't do any one of those things.

For the briefest moment she could delude herself, pretend that she felt the warmth the flames brought for just a second. Could she even really remember what warmth was? What it felt like? She liked to think that she could. It had been so long since she felt warmth.

"You're doing it again Susu-chan." A soft voice commented, and Atsuko turned to face the speaker.

"Sorry Rei-nee." She apologized, sitting in the chair next to her older sister and repressing the sigh that wanted to slip out. "How are you feeling today?"

"Good. Stop worrying about me Susu-chan." Her sister said with a kind smile and Atsuko frowned. That was an impossible request. Her older sister was in a psychiatric ward, she had been for the past eight years, all she did was worry. "How about you? My little sister is the number three hero, that's not an easy feat."

Yes, she was the number three ranked hero. That wasn't good enough, because _he_ was still ranked higher than her. The man that drove her kind, loving sister to the point of her psychiatric break, who forced her into an abusive, horrible marriage, who forced her to pop out kid after kid until he had his perfect child. No, Atsuko wouldn't be satisfied until she stripped him of his title, until she kept him from ever gaining that precious 'number one' title that he wanted so badly.

"It's troublesome." Atsuko replied simply, and it was. Being the third ranked hero was more than just defeating villains and saving lives, it was the public appearance, talk shows, magazine covers. She let her agent handle most of it.

"How's..." Rei started but trailed off, looking down at her hands in pain.

"Shoto is doing well." She said softly, knowing just who her sister wanted to ask about. "He was admitted to U.A. through recommendations which is no surprise, he's going to be an amazing hero."

"That's good." Rei said softly, sadly. Atsuko knew said boy hadn't once visited his mother, but she also knew it wasn't for the reasons that her sister thought. Rei thought her son hated her, resented her, but that was so far from the truth, her son loved her, so much. It was his father that he resented, he was just scared his appearance would remind Rei of the man that caused her so much pain.

"And he'll be learning from All Might, it's an amazing opportunity." She said, though her sister refused to raise her head. "He's a very kind boy, a bit apathetic and blunt, it's like being around a mini version of myself."

Atsuko didn't mean to come off so, for lack of a better word, cold. She couldn't help it. Most of the time it wasn't to intentionally hurt someone's feelings, she just couldn't be bothered to care more than necessary. It fit her Quirk.

"Fuyumi and Natsuo are doing good as well. I had lunch with them two days ago, they said they'll come visit you sometime this week." Rei perked up at the mention of her kids and she looked hopefully up at her younger sister.

"Toya?"

Atsuko's eyes fell go her lap at the mention of her oldest nephew. She never found out exactly what happened that caused the disappearance of the boy, a falling out with his father most likely, but the man would never disclose the information to her. He was just gone one day, and no one had seen hide nor hair of him since. Rei sighed sadly when Atsuko gave no answer.

"They offered me as position at U.A." The younger woman finally confessed, desperate for a change of subject..

"Really?"

"Mhm." She hadn't told anybody else, hadn't wanted to. It was a hard decision, one she had been giving a lot of thought to.

"Are you going to take it?" Her sister prompted, the light returning to her grey eyes. Atsuko hesitated before replying.

"I'm not sure, I don't think teaching is a good fit for me. I'm probably going to turn it down, besides, like I said, Nezumi acquired All Might, and the teachers he has are more than competent."

"Maybe teaching could be a better fit for you than you realize Susu-chan. You have a lot that you could pass on to the next generation of heroes." Rei pointed out and Atsuko sighed.

"I'll give it some thought." Glancing at the clock on the wall she got to her feet. "I have to go for now Rei-nee, sidekick applications have been coming in at an alarming rate and I need to make the final decisions before tonight."

"Ah, my bigshot little sister and her much sought-after agency." Rei teased, and Atsuko rolled her eyes.

"Okay, okay. I'll be back soon Rei-nee." She said, wrapping her arms around the woman. Her heart ached, as it always did. Leaving her sister in that place was never easy, but she refused to leave, and Atsuko couldn't force her.

"Take care."

* * *

"Did the room just get colder?" A boisterous voice laughed when Atsuko walked through the front doors of her agency building.

"You're an idiot Daiki-kun." A feminine voice replied seriously.

"Hello, Daiki-san, Retsu-san." The white-haired woman greeted politely, forcing a small smile on her face, it felt unnatural.

"Good afternoon Frostbite-sama." They replied in unison. The two of them were receptionists to Atsuko's hero agency and had been with her since the start of her career. Though they weren't fighters, she trusted them more than anybody.

"Are the final sidekick applications in my office?" Due to her rank and general popularity, Atsuko always received a plethora of sidekick applications. There were too many for her to sort through herself, so Daiki and Retsu oversaw filtering through them, looking at quirks, tests scores, experience, and the like. They knew what she was looking for in a sidekick.

"Yes ma'am. We were able to narrow it down to about a hundred applications." Retsu informed quietly.

"You're just too popular Frostbite-sama!" Daiki exclaimed with a giant grin.

"And you're too loud." Retsu sighed.

"You both should go home soon and get some rest. I know this time of year takes a lot out of both of you. Thank you for your hard work."

Without giving the two time to protest, Atsuko stepped into the elevator. Her office was on the very top floor of the five-story building. The first floor was the reception area and conference rooms, the second and third floors were for her sidekicks to do office work and research, the fourth floor was dedicated to training, and the fifth floor was her office, along with her lawyers and secretaries. Being the number three ranked hero meant that she had many people working with her, so she needed a big space.

When she walked into her office, she breathed out a sigh of relief and the temperature in the room instantly dropped, not that she felt it at all. People liked to joke that when she walked into a room the temperature decreased, however, what they didn't know is they were right. Atsuko was able to control it, but when she wasn't, she could freeze a room over in seconds.

Like her family, Atsuko had an ice-related quirk. Hers was coined Frostbreath, an extremely fitting name. Simply put, when air entered her lungs its temperature drastically dropped to below freezing. When she exhaled, she could freeze people and things depending on their proximity and the force of her exhale. The side effect to her quirk was that her own body temperature ran extremely low. While a normal person's body temperature ran at 98.6 F, Atsuko's stayed at about 30 F, just below freezing. Her skin was always ice cold to the touch and no matter what she did, she was unable to feel warmth. No matter how many layers she wore, how close she stood to fires, she was always cold, not that it bothered her on a physical level. A mental level was a different story.

The white-haired woman took a seat at her massive desk and rolled her neck, wincing as she felt a few pops. Her office was completely quiet, the only sounds being the crackle of ice as it began covering the walls of her office. She was still reigning it in, but only enough to limit the spread to the confines of her space.

There was a stack of folders on her desk, just like Daiki and Retsu said there would be. She only had three sidekick openings. On average, Atsuko kept fifty sidekicks, give or take. Two usually accompanied her on regular calls and at least ten on more serious calls. She was doing her best to train and prepare her sidekicks so they could stand on their own one day.

Being a hero was dangerous work, and that was the part often sugar coated by the media. They loved to show the victories, the lives saved, the battles won. They were less eager to talk about the losses, the defeats, the lives lost, both hero and civilian. Sidekick openings were often grim times. Usually the only reason Atsuko's agency had an opening was because of a death or a retirement due to serious injury. She didn't like to think about just how many sidekicks she had lost over the years.

This time the reasoning wasn't too grim. No one had died. One was going on maternity leave, one was retiring of their own accord, and one was going to work in the US for a few months. Though their jobs would be waiting for them should they choose to come back, Atsuko needed the spots filled.

Grabbing the first file at the top, Atsuko leaned back in her chair. She knew it was going to be a long night.

* * *

 **A/N: Lmao, so I just finished season 3 of BNHA and I've been toying with this since I first got into the series so here's the All Might fic none of you asked for. Tell me what you think!**

 **P.S.: I started working on this before Hawk was revealed so after Atsuko I'm just going to move the pro heroes all down 1 rank (so now Hawk is 4, Best Jeanist is 5, so on and so forth)**


End file.
